Oregon is ablaze with color. Having emerged from the long, erratic drear of winter, (which for those of you who haven't had the privelege is a schizophrenic season involving long, merciless stretches of gray into which are peppered the odd days or even weeks of full-on spring) spring has sprung without apology and the crowd is loving it. Mother Nature seems to have returned from therapy and her personality is once again distinct and integrated, (well, mostly). The very bright side of this is that all those dormant, inconspicuous trees and shrubberies that line the house and streets ever-so-politely in the winter have blown open into stunning displays of multichromatic wonderment. Sometimes riding my bike home from work, I feel as though I've taken a turn into some kind of Eden. The quaint houses all around have suddenly been bombarded with colors and smells the likes of which would shame even Willy Wonka. Meanwhile, our sweet little blue house around the corner is swelling with firey orange irises, brilliant red tulips, purple rhododendrons and wispy lavender wisteria blossoms. Much to our delight, our landlord has invested a certain share of his own soul in the property, the results of which can be clearly seen in the onset of warm weather. Meanwhile, just beyond the petal-carpeted walkway up to our door, Isaiah continues to grow and delight us with the stars in his eyes and the angelic patter of his laughter.

He has recently managed to roll from his stomach to his back. I hear that this means soon he will be here-there-and-everywhere on two-to-four feet. Luckily this quadrapedal (yes, that's geek for crawling) development is not expected to take shape until we've landed on foreign soil, meaning that we won't have to reinvent our whole house to babyproof the place. We can start from scratch.

Since the average preschool teacher income doesn't quite supplement the 'bread' that i keep hearing i'm supposed to win, Gaibi and i have initiated a new enterprise. Utilizing old magazines, scraps of wrapping paper, grocery bags, junk mail and other things, we make greeting cards and sell them at Eugene's 'Saturday Market', a weekly affair in which food, craft and produce vendors gather to pedal their wares. Its really a quintessentially hippie event, complete with music stage and of course scores of independent acts strumming and juggling on every corner. Across the street hippies and punks gather for a huge drum circle that often lasts for the duration of the 6+ hour market. Our first day of sale was the day before Mother's day. I set out with a shoebox full of cards, a hand-made sign and a little blanket on which to display our creations. We made fifty bucks and i met a lot of interesting people.

Last weekend however, i baked in the hot sun for 8 hours and came away with about 6 bucks after paying mandatory market fees. Home -made stationery can be a tough sell on a blisteringly hot day that doesn't precede a major holiday. Such is the market, however. One must learn to cultivate equanimity toward this fact.

So we continue to produce and solicit these things and i have a faint belief that it might be the first step in the direction of actually getting paid for something we truly love to do. Its not a starship, but its Enterprise and i think i like it.